Once labeled “the most dangerous woman in America,” Emma Goldman emigrated to Rochester from what is now Lithuania in 1886. Though her family would remain rooted in the Flower City, she deemed Rochester to be a drab industrial town and moved to New York City after living here for only three years. She would go on to become an international advocate for anarchism, free love, and the labor movement. A fiery orator and a prolific writer, Goldman became implicated in the assassination of President McKinley and was later deported during the anti-immigrant Red Scare era.

Join Hon. Richard A. Dollinger as he details how Emma Goldman’s life intersected with the life of the first federal judge in Western New York in a series of events that symbolize the dynamics in America at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Hon. Richard A. Dollinger is a retired judge of the New York Court of Claims, assigned to the Seventh Judicial District as an acting Supreme Court Justice in the matrimonial part. He is a graduate of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto and the Albany Law School.  He was a trial lawyer for 28 years. His public service includes five years in the Monroe County Legislature and five years in the New York State Senate.  He is currently a member of the Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics. He published more than 100 opinions on family law matters in New York and has written dozens of articles on historical and legal topics including the Married Women’s Property Rights Act in New York, the right to privacy, memory evidence, hearsay, excited utterances, and the rules of evidence applied to the songs of Billy Joel.

Registration for this free program is recommended but not required.

This is an in-person program that will also be livestreamed at:

https://www.youtube.com/@RochesterPublicLibraryNY/streams

Presented by the Local History & Genealogy Division: (585) 428-8370